Winning Words 1/21/11
“So often the enemy of the best is the good.” (Steven Covey) A few days ago, as I was walking through one of the halls of our high school, I saw this Covey slogan printed on the wall in BIG letters. I wish that I had seen these words when I was in high school. I guess it’s not too late to take and apply them in situations today. “Good enough” is not good enough when we seek to do and to be the best ;-) Jack

FROM PRJS IN MICHIGAN: That's a lesson I learned from Prof Holcomb, my debate coach. Until then I had
been content to do pretty good. We went to a tournament at Northwestern and came in second out of 82 schools and I was feeling pretty good about myself. The whole trip home Holcomb kept lecturing on how we could have been first if we had given more effort. The unfortunate thing was that he was right. I learned under him to not accept the good if there was a possibility of doing better. FROM JACK: We all need a "coach" who can encourage us to strive for the best and not to be satisfied with just the good.

FROM RI IN BOSTON: Going back about 30 years ago in this country there was a chain of Best stores, similar to today's Target and Walmart stores. Best stores are out of business now, apparently because they weren't "best"...and it seems they weren't even "good enough". I have the perception that the U.S. no longer strives to be best anymore...in school, in creativity, in our national aspirations. There seems to be a lot of "I just want to have fun" spirit out there...the Las Vegas syndrome. Have the country's priorities changed? Or is it my personal cynicism? FROM JACK: Just as "beauty is in the mind of the beholder," so is the concept of what is best is in our mind. We continually need someone to challenge us to be better than just "good." We are privileged if we meet up with that kind of person...and they are in every era.

FROM HAWKEYE GEORGE: Sorry, I don't quite get it. Jack, your messages is one thing I look fwd to each morning - you help people with these writings. FROM JACK: Since you have an interest in basketball, let me explain it in those terms. There are many basketball teams playing the game, and many of them are good. But those teams which win championships are those where the players are not content to be good. They want to elevate their game, so that they are the best. Be the best that you can be! I'm sure you wanted that to be a goal in your business, too.

FROM SF WRITING FROM SOMEWHERE WHERE IT'S WARM: Have you read 'Good to Great' by Jim Collins? That's his whole premise. Really liked it. Check it out! FROM JACK: I checked, and here's what I learned.
Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't is a 2001 management book by James C. Collins that aims to describe how companies transition from being average companies to great companies and how companies can fail to make the transition. "Greatness" is defined as financial performance several multiples better than the market average over a sustained period of time. Collins finds the main factor for achieving the transition to be a narrow focusing of the company’s resources on their field of competence.

FROM MOLINER CF: Maybe conjugation says it..."good, better, best" FROM JACK: I didn't know that you excelled in the nuances of language forms. I'll bet your grades were the BEST! MORE FROM CF: I almost wrote "good, gooder, goodest" but didn't want you to think I was doing mockery. Which I am not.

FROM MO IN ILLINOIS: Somewhere I have a poem published in Dear Abby's column "Good enough is not good enough"...saying essentially this very thing. Also the saying, "Good, better, best. Never quit until the good is better, and the better, best!" I think of the parable Jesus told of the seeds, being sown in fallow or weedy ground. I gave a devotional on that, pointing out that the "weeds" could very well be our involvement in many worthwhile activities, or at least innocuous ones, which prevent us from having time for the works of
faith...Good, but not BEST! May we have the wisdom to know the difference, eh?! FROM JACK: I have stuff like the Dear Abby poem. Now, if I just knew where to find it. My filing system isn't the best.